Wireless hardware not working on laptop

[lavacreeperking (thomas lewis)]

I just installed Fedora 34 with the Xfce desktop on a Toshiba laptop(Model: Satellite S50-C) and the wireless hardware does not seem to be working. I have no Wi-Fi connection. The laptop has a built-in Wi-Fi card and I even connected a Netgear use Wi-Fi adapter. But ifconfig -a reports no wireless interface.
Also I attempted to connect a bluetooth device to my laptop, but nothing ever shows up in the devices list it just says searching for devices and I also never see the laptop listed as a device on the device I was trying to connect. The bluetooth service is running and bluetooth is on but it does not seem to work.
I have installed Fedora with the Xfce desktop on an older Toshiba Satellite laptop(C855-S5214) and the built-in Wi-Fi works fine. The older laptop does not have a bluetooth card.

Why is the Wi-Fi and bluetooth not working?

[computersavvy (Jeff V)]

Drivers.

Please post the output of lspci so we can see exactly which wifi chipset you have and may be able to locate the driver for you.

[lavacreeperking (thomas lewis)]

Output of lspci:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Host Bridge -OPI (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 5500 (rev 09)
00:03.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Audio Controller (rev 09)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP USB xHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP MEI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP High Definition Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #1 (rev e3)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #3 (rev e3)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #4 (rev e3)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #6 (rev e3)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP USB EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP LPC Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP SATA Controller [AHCI Mode] (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP SMBus Controller (rev 03)
07:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM43142 802.11b/g/n (rev 01)
08:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0c)
09:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTS5229 PCI Express Card Reader (rev 01)

Output of lsusb:
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:8001 Intel Corp. Integrated Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 13d3:5652 IMC Networks TOSHIBA Web Camera - HD
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0846:9052 NetGear, Inc. A6100 AC600 DB Wireless Adapter [Realtek RTL8811AU]
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

I don’t care as much about getting the built-in Wi-Fi card to work as I do about the usb adapter. The built-in card only supports 2.4 Ghz and I need 5 GHz so that is why I have the usb adapter. I have no idea what Bluetooth card I have.

[computersavvy (Jeff V)]

The built in wifi adapter uses the broadcom BCM43142 chipset and the USB adapter uses the Realtek RTL8811AU chipset.

This is one guide I found by searching for the broadcom chipset with fedora 34.

This one for the realtek chipset.

Note that ten seconds of searching gave me both, so please try that next time as it will speed things up for you.

[lavacreeperking (thomas lewis)]

Thanks. You can call me a noob, but I asked this question because I did not know what to look for. Now that I know what I can try my only problem is where do I download the driver from? The webpage that you gave me does not provide a link to any downloads so I have no idea where to get the driver from. The only thing I could find was something for ubuntu.

[computersavvy (Jeff V)]

There is a link at the bottom of each those pages to the step-by-step guide as you can see here.

Please also note that was just the first link of many I found by searching “BCM43142 driver fedora 34” and you may have more luck going to a different one.

If you do a full upgrade of the fedora 34 install it may already support that chipset, but I cannot test since I don’t have those devices.

[lavacreeperking (thomas lewis)]

Yes I saw the links to the other pages, but there were no links to download any drivers. Maybe there was one for the Broadcom adapter, but I need one for my Netgear adapter. I could not find any downloads for the chipset the Netgear adapter uses.

Do you know of any brands of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth adapters that are known to work with Linux?

[ozeszty]

@lavacreeperking

Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0846:9052 NetGear, Inc. A6100 AC600 DB Wireless Adapter [Realtek RTL8811AU]

Your Netgear adapter has a Realtek’s RTL8811AU chip and drivers for it are linked in computersavvy’s link. CSS on that page should be fixed, because links are not underlined, so it’s easy to miss them. Anyway, there are a few possibilities for your card.

As for supported out of the box WiFi adapters, Intel has a good track record, many Qualcomm (they bought Atheros) devices also work fine. It’s best to check support status before buying.

[computersavvy (Jeff V)]

@lavacreeperking

Yes I saw the links to the other pages, but there were no links to download any drivers. Maybe there was one for the Broadcom adapter, but I need one for my Netgear adapter. I could not find any downloads for the chipset the Netgear adapter uses.

Do you know of any brands of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth adapters that are known to work with Linux?

Since you apparently could not see it. This is one for the actual drivers. GitHub - morrownr/8821au: Linux Driver for USB WiFi Adapters that are based on the RTL8811AU and RTL8821AU Chipsets

[lavacreeperking (thomas lewis)]

Thank you.

[davidmoser]

I installed Fedora 34, Workstation, the Gnome Desktop on Dell E6430 laptop which has the INTEL Ultimate-N 6300 Network Controller. Could not get the wireless working and could not find the proper drivers. I wanted to try this out but without wireless, it is a deal breaker.

[computersavvy (Jeff V)]

Welcome David and I understand the frustration.

Please post the output of “inxi -Nnxx” so we can see exactly what wifi chipset you are using and try to find the proper drivers for you.

Also, just for an FYI.
It is better if you start a new thread so your issue gets the attention it deserves.

[davidmoser]

JV, Here is the output you requested:
Network:
Device-1: Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network vendor: Dell driver: e1000e v: kernel
port: f080 bus-ID: 00:19.0 chip-ID: 8086:1502
IF: eno1 state: down mac: f0:1f:af:1e:46:26
Device-2: Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: f040
bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:422b
IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: 3c:a9:f4:3a:bd:f8

[computersavvy (Jeff V)]

1. Did you read what I said above?

It is better if you start a new thread so your issue gets the attention it deserves.

2. Did you search for the card you have to see what drivers are available? This is just one of the may links that turned up.

Please open a new thread. The info on this (chip-ID: 8086:422b) may be different than the generic.

[sideburns (Joe Zeff)]

You might want to start by running this command in a terminal:

sudo dnf list available broadcam*

That will tell you what packages there are. If there are two packages listed, the bt one will be for bluetooth and the wl is for WiFi. If you don’t get any results, make sure you have the rpmfusion repos installed and active as they’re both in rpmfusion-nonfree.